May 21, 2006

Wet and Cold In Oakland As A's Falter

We had looked forward to this three-game series against the Giants with great optimism. Not only would we have a chance to see Barry take on the Babe's statistics, but more importantly, our favorite team could obtain bragging rights in what's often a hostile rivalry, one that the Giants seem to have favor in the media race, even when the A's have accomplished much more during their tenure than have the Giants, amassing four World Series titles to the Giants zero, and continually making a run at the playoffs year after year. However, following today's 6-0 defeat, in which the A's could only manage a single hit, and never threatened, we find them losers of two out of three, yet still tied with Texas for first place in the division, who similarly fell against their rival Astros.

What made the day even more difficult was a steady rain that began in the first inning and continued throughout the nine-inning affair. While never truly threatening to stop the contest, we were first dampened, then cooled, then soaked, after hours of getting a wide-scale version of Chinese water torture - even as we watched our team get tortured in their own way, pitch after pitch from Giants hurler Matt Cain.

As we've noted a number of times on Athletics Nation, the A's offense has a special knack for making the opposing team's pitcher rival the memory of Cy Young. It seems even more likely that it's not the opponent's skills, but the A's weaknesses that are showing through. Even as we've seen some regulars shake off early-season doldrums that saw many below the Mendoza line, we're still not confident that they can go toe to toe with the best teams in the game after seeing what we did through this three-game series that had them outscored 10-3, and lucky to pull off the 1-0 victory Friday night.